The Growth and Evolution of the ProBlogger Training Event

Hi there and welcome to episode 110 of the ProBlogger Podcast. Today, I want to talk to you about the ProBlogger Event. I want to tell you the story of how this event came to be for those of you who are thinking about running events on your own blog. Then also just run through the event because I know a lot of ProBlogger Podcast listeners have been asking about it—when it’s happening, what’s going on at the event.

I thought about running you through the event in the hope that maybe I’ll convince some of you to come over. I also do have an option for those of you who can’t get into Australia. I know it’s a big ask because we do have a virtual ticket. I will tell you a little bit about that during today’s podcast. You can find today’s details of all the links that I’m going to mention at problogger.com/podcast/110 where you’ll find today’s show notes and you can ask questions on the event itself. Let’s get into today’s episode.

I’m really excited about this particular episode because it’s a story I love to tell—the start of the ProBlogger Event. The first event actually started almost on an impulse. It was almost one of those accidental things. This is 2010, I’d just come home from a conference in the States, I think from memory, it was Blog World Expo which isn’t called that anymore. In fact, I’m not even sure if it’s continuing to run but this event had 4000 people at it and I was just so excited about what happened when bloggers got together.

I got home and tweeted on impulse one day, “Who would want to come to an Australian blogging event?” 2010, I didn’t know a whole heap of Aussie bloggers. I knew of 10 or so full-timers so I had this vision in my mind of us 10 bloggers getting together around a board table, me maybe hiring a boardroom in a hotel or something like that and having sort of a mastermind event.

I didn’t think any bigger than that but within an hour or so of putting that tweet out, I had 50 or so people saying they’d love to come to an Australian blogging event. All these people came out of the woodwork. I didn’t realize a lot of them were Aussies. We’d been interacting online together.

I very quickly decided to get out and see if I can find a big room in a hotel. I had no budget whatsoever for this event so I went to the cheapest hotel that I could find which was a bit of a dodgy one. It’s being condemned now and knocked over. That tells you a lot about the quality of that first venue. I hired a room for 50 people and I think it was about 6 weeks after I had tweeted that first tweet saying, “Who would want to come?” We actually put on the event.

That is not recommended. We had 6 weeks to put on a full-day event for 120 people who eventually did come. I hired to get a second room and add that to the first. It’s not really recommended to put on an event that quickly but we did it. Perhaps because it was so hastily organized on such an impulse and because my readers were all excited to be together in one room, people didn’t notice that the hotel was as dodgy as it was. It was a great day. The most common question at the end of that day was, “When are we doing it again?” We actually had a few people fly in. I think I convinced Chris Garrett to come across. He was living in the UK. He spoke and we had a couple of New Zealanders fly across for it as well. We had international attendees from day one.

We ran the event the next year. It grew by 100 people. I think, from memory, we went to the Novotel in Melbourne, a bit nicer venue. We had multiple streams running across the day, different sessions going on in different rooms which was different from that first year where we’d all be in a very tight room all day. It’s still a one-day event and it grew to about 200 or so people.

The next year, we moved it to a stadium, Etihad stadium. We hired some rooms there in this football stadium here in Australia. It was about 300 people. We had 2 days of conference and it grew to 300 or so people. The next year, we moved it up to Queensland, Australia, onto the Gold Coast and it went to 400 people and then 500 people the following year. Last year, we held the event at the RACV Royal Pines Resort, up on the Gold Coast in Queensland, a beautiful place. It’s an amazing golf course around it, beautiful views of the Gold Coast. We had, I think it was almost 800 people, come to that event. 

It’s grown a lot since that first one and it’s taken us a lot more time and energy to put on the event every year. In fact, we begin planning our event now 12 months before the event so we’re already thinking about future years before we even run the event. We usually get in three or four international speakers and then we have speakers from Australia predominantly as well.

Every year, it grows in terms of numbers of attendees. Every year except for last year, we sold out our tickets very quickly. Last year we moved to a much bigger venue. We’re hoping this year that the venue’s big enough. I think we can fit 1000 or so people in there. Hopefully, there’s room to grow this year.

The event has grown and changed every year as well. We went from a one-day event to a two-day event. We added more streams and different styles of sessions as well and this year’s no different. We’re changing things up again. If you’ve come to our event in the past, you’re going to see some different things this year and I’m going to go through some of those things in a moment.

What I thought I might do is just run you through what’s beyond two days of conference now but the main two days of the conference. I want to run you through what happens at our event and talk to you about some of the speakers and sessions that we’ve got running this year. This is how it goes. The event this year is on September 9 and 10. That’s a Friday and a Saturday. They’re the two main days of the conference and most of the people come for those two days but we do have things going on on the Thursday, in the lead up and on the Sunday this year as well. That’s some of the different things that we have going on.

We kick things off usually on Thursday night with a gathering for our new attendees, our newbie orientation. Last year, we had several hundred people come to that. We were overwhelmed by how many new people there were so we’re going to do that a bit differently this year but it will still be on that Thursday afternoon, I think around 3:30.

I’ll talk about and give you a bit of an overview of how the event’s going to run, welcome you, and give you an opportunity to meet some other first-timers as well because it can be quite overwhelming walking into a room full of 800 people. You get a chance to network if you’re a first-timer. Then we welcome other people.

This year, on Thursday and out, we’re going to do some pre-conference niche networking. You get an opportunity not only to meet other first-timers but also an opportunity to meet other people in your niche. We have a lot of fashion bloggers, we have star bloggers, we have food bloggers, travel bloggers, business bloggers, all kinds of bloggers, all the different niches. There’ll be an opportunity to connect with other people who are doing similar things to you which is something we heard back from our attendees last year that they wanted to do more of.

Also, on Thursday this year, there is a master class running Shayne Tilley who many of you know from ProBlogger. He’s written many posts and has been involved on ProBlogger for a number of years now. On Thursday afternoon, he’ll be running a master class on creating products. That’s an additional ticket that you can buy on top of the main conference ticket. I’ll talk to you about some of the other master classes in a moment because we are running a number of them this year on the Sunday after the event.

Things really kick off on Friday where we go into the first of our two main days. The main conference runs all day Friday, all day Saturday. We structure our conference the same way on both days. Both days start with keynotes and our keynotes are generally a little bit more inspiring and still on topics relevant to bloggers, podcasters, and influencers.

This year we’ve got a number of keynoters. We’ve got Bryan Fanzo flying in from the States. He’s great on live streaming and his first session will be on digital storytelling, leveraging different platforms to tell your story. He’s great on Periscope, Facebook Live, Snapchat. That’s his strength so we’re exploring some of those new technologies this year. We also got Natalie Sisson speaking. Natalie is from New Zealand although she’s one of those people who travels around the world a fair bit. She’s going to talk about getting the most out of an event like ProBlogger Event.

That’s how we’ll open up on Friday. At the end of the day, we finish the day with another keynote from Daniel Flynn. Daniel Flynn is a great young social entrepreneur. He’s got a not-for-profit called Thankyou which has been at least successful. He’s written a great book which has been a best seller here in Australia. He’ll close out our day.

We top and tail our day with keynotes. On day two we’ve got Dan Norris from WP Curve who’s going to speak about how to blog like an entrepreneur. We’ve got Emilie Wapnick of Puttylike and she’s going to talk about combining many passions into one blog. Emilie did an amazing TED talk on that topic. I think it’s been viewed over 2 million times. Again, she’s one of our international guests. I’m also doing a keynote on the first day and I’ll close things out on Friday.

Top and tailing each day with keynotes, and between the keynotes we stream things. You have lots of choices between them. Some of our attendees get a bit overwhelmed by the choice but the good thing is we record all our sessions as audio, so you get access to all the recordings, all the audio recordings and slides of all the keynotes and all of the breakout sessions. There’s a lot captured for you to dig into over the next 12 months. You can really keep them as long as you’d like.

We’ve, this year, decided to stream things in a number of different tracks. We’re going to have a fundamentals track which is all about the basics of blogging. In that track, I’m going to write a session on how to find readers’ feal blog and how to monetize your blog. We’ve got Nicole Avery from Planning with Kids talking about things that she wish she’d known when she started blogging. That’s a track particularly designed for those who are just starting out. We always have 10%–15% of our attendees who are pre-bloggers that haven’t even started blogs. That’s an ideal track for those first-timers but it’s also great for other beginners or people who want a refresher on some of these core topics. That’s one of the tracks.

We have another track called Tools, Tactics, and Techniques which is obviously about tools, tactics, and techniques, and more of a practical track. You’re going to get some very actionable stuff in that one. And then the last track is for our breakouts, at least, is called Strategy, Ideas, and Inspiration. It’s slightly bigger picture stuff. This year, in those three breakouts, you’re going to get some amazing topics and we surveyed our attendees from last year and designed this whole schedule around what we heard from our readers

There’s sessions on how to create great content without killing yourself. We’ve got a session this year on YouTube. We’ve got an SEO tools session. We’ve got one on how to create online products, how to create great content, how to find readers, visual content, how to build your email list, how to build community on your blog, email, affiliate marketing strategy, how to write a great sales copy, how to get sponsored post opportunities, how to write great blog content, using your blog for social good. We’ve got a session for Instagram, on monetizing your blog, legal issues for bloggers. The list goes on, and on, and on. There’s a whole heap and I’ll give you a link in today’s show notes for the schedule itself so you can dig in there. There’s other sessions on Facebook and Instagram, advertising and blog design, and all kinds of stuff there.

That’s the bulk of what’s happening. Now, each of those breakout rooms will seat several hundred people. There’s plenty of room in those. You shouldn’t really have too much trouble getting into those sessions. This year, we’re also adding a fourth stream and we’re calling it our workshop stream. This is an opportunity for you to sit in a smaller room with a smaller group of people, probably around 40 people in a lot of these. With your ticket, we get to choose one, possibly two of these sessions.

These are opportunities for you to sit in a smaller room and to workshop a topic. There’ll be an opportunity for a bit more Q&A, maybe an opportunity for you to say, “Could you look at my blog and pull that apart?” Obviously, not all 40 people will get that opportunity but a little bit more of an intimate session and this enables us to really dig into some more advanced topics and some more specialized topics.

We’ve got a session on Google Analytics. We’ve got one on SEO. We’ve got one on Facebook advertising, one on copywriting, one on building courses and selling courses. We’ve got a number of sessions with our partner, Olympus, on how to take great photos and use them on your blog. We’ve got one on the back end of your blog, how to get the back end of your blog in order as well. How to choose what products to create on your blog. We’ve got a number of workshops on podcasting. We’ve got one on how to use a microphone and make your capture the best sound possible. We’ve got another one on presentation skills and another one on launching a podcast.

These workshops enable us to go a little bit more specialized and to tackle some topics that we haven’t been able to tackle because we’ve always had to fill a room with 200 or 300 people. Some of these sessions will run twice. We’ve left some spaces open in the schedule. You’ll see if you do check out the schedule for OnCourse. If there is a lot of demand for the Google Analytics session, we might run that twice. We may even run it three times if there’s enough demand.

We’re trying to tailor things there so when you buy your ticket, you’ll be able to select straight away some of those workshops. Some of you will be able to get two of them as well. This is something new for us and we’re just trying to work out how to run these using the extra rooms that we have around the place.

That’s what’s happening during the training. This is daytime. At night, things change gears a little. Particularly on Friday night, we have an amazing networking party. Our venue, RACV Royal Pines, last year, put on the most amazing party. The most amazing array of food was just amazing. That’s too many “amazings” in that sentence but it really was and it was a load of fun.

This year we’re giving our attendees the option to buy a ticket for that event. Last year, we had about 30% of people who didn’t come to it. They just liked to network in smaller groups or have some downtime in their rooms. We have a lot of introverts come. We didn’t want to waste your money so you can purchase that networking party for $50, Australian.

Friday, you’ve got all-day training then the party, the networking party the Friday night. Then Saturday, again another full day of training and then on the Saturday night we generally just hit the bar at the RACV Royal Pines. That’s just a pay-as-you-go type bar so a lot of people have a bit of a dance, a bit of a boogie that night.

Then on Sunday this year, we’re adding some master class opportunities and these will run on Sunday morning, from 8:30AM until around 1:00PM. I think we’ve got seven master classes that you can choose from and some of these will be quite small. I think the smallest one is for 14 people and the largest one is for 160 people. That large one is on productivity and planning and that’s with Natalie Sisson and Nicole Avery.

The other ones are between 14 and 40 people. These are all additional costs so you can add them to your ticket. They all range in price from $90–$199. The smaller ones are on things like creating a course to sell on your blog, profitable podcasting, email marketing and lead automation, Facebook advertising, and search engine optimization. Again, you can find details of those on the schedule page and I will link to that in today’s show notes.

Really, when you look at the ticket options this year, we’ve given you a few different options so that you can tailor the experience just to your needs. If you want everything, if you want all the training, the networking, and the master class, you can do that or if you just want to come to the main two days of the conference and then have Friday night to yourself or in a smaller group, then you can do that as well. Totally up to you. I’ll have links to some of the frequently asked questions that we’ve been getting about those ticketing options in today’s show notes as well.

Just a recap for the main two-days conference ticket. We’ll give you all of that content. We’ll give you lunch on both days. You’ll get morning and afternoon tea on both days as well. You’ll get the opportunity to go to 24 track sessions, 6 keynotes, and 2 workshops, and you also get a recording of all the sessions except for the workshops. We won’t be necessarily recording those workshops this particular year. Then you can add on the $50-party or one of the master classes.

So, who’s this conference for? It’s actually for bloggers of all stages. As I’ve mentioned before, we always have 10%–15% of our attendees who are yet to start blogging and the amazing thing is by the end of the conference, most of those people are ready to start. They’ve got the skills, they’ve got a lot of their questions answered, and they’re, most importantly, inspired to do it.

Every year, we hear back from attendees who are coming back to their second conference of how they’ve started a blog since our last conference. In fact, last year, I met a couple of people who started their blog at the conference. They were so inspired that they didn’t come to the party. They started a blog.

It’s for bloggers. It’s also for other influencers as well. This year, you would have noticed as you look at the schedule that we have sessions on podcasting, we have sessions on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, live streaming, Periscope—those types of those technologies. A lot of the sessions that we’ve got this year, whilst they are being presented for bloggers, they are very relevant for people using different platforms. Search engine optimization, Google Analytics, these are as relevant for someone who has a blog as a podcast because a lot of podcasts are hosted on blogs as well.

This conference is also for brands who want to reach bloggers and influencers. Every year, we have quite a few businesses who want to meet influencers come to our conferences as well. We have a special brand ticket for you. It’s a little bit more expensive because it’s not subsidized by our amazing partners of the event. If you are a blogger and you’re coming to learn about blogging, we have quite a large discount for you. The main ticket for you as a blogger is $499, Australian, at the moment. It does go up on the July 1 by $100 but for the brands, they’re $799. You’re not being subsidized by our sponsors to come but you’re more than welcome to come on that basis as well.

For internationals, I know a lot of you who listen to this podcast are not from Australia, you are more than welcome to come if you want to make that trip out. Every year, we’re having more and more internationals come. Last year, we had quite a large contingent come across from New Zealand. I think there were 8–10 of them and I know this year that there’s quite a few New Zealanders going to come across as well. We’ve had people from Singapore, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Asia. We’ve always had people come across from the US to the conference, both as speakers and as attendees. We’ve had people from the UK, from the Middle East—all kinds of parts of the world. You are more than welcome to come.

Right now, the exchange rate is in the favor of those of you who are coming into Australia, in many cases, for the US particularly. The $499 ticket price, that’s Australian dollars. If you’re in the US, that’s about $385, US. Flights coming into Australia from the US of late over the last few weeks in particular have been quite amazing. I’ve never seen them this low. There’s a bit of a price war going on at the moment. It might be a good time for you to come to Australia. I would highly recommend you stay on for a week or two afterwards because it’s a great country and every American I’ve ever met says, “I want to come to Australia.” Well, now is the opportunity so do come across.

Those of you who can’t make that trip, I know it is a big ask. It takes a good 24 hours, really, with connections and that type of thing to get out here and it does cost a little bit to come out. If you can’t get here, we will be bringing back this year a virtual ticket which will get you all the recordings to our keynotes and breakout sessions. There’ll be a bit of a delay delivering them to you. We like to focus on our attendees and so we focus on the real, live event and then when we get home, we get those recordings up. There are a few days delay on that. We’re saying within 10 days. Those virtual passess will go on sale in July. Hold off on that but do stay tuned if you do want to come on a virtual basis.

What are the benefits of coming to ProBlogger event? Well, you get two amazing days of teaching and training, three if you stay on for the master classes. Every year, we hear stories of people who have started new things as a result of the event. I’ve lost count this year of the amount of people who’ve started podcasts as a result of last year’s event.

I’m sure, I’m certain, this year we’ll stimulate a whole heap of live streaming content. We’ve had people start ebooks, get publishing deals as a result of things that they’ve learned at the event find freelance writing opportunities and all kinds of new skills. The bulk of what we’re doing here is training and giving you the tools and information you need to build profitable blogs. That’s really my goal for this event.

But then, on top of that, there’s also other collaboration opportunities as well. For many of our attendees, this is what they really come for or this is at least why they keep coming back. Most people come because of the training then they realize it’s the community itself that has all the other benefits. There are many stories of attendees who are now in best friend friendships with people. I know of numerous attendees who are now in informal and formal masterminds with people that they met at the event.

In fact, there are quite a few attendees who stay for an extra day to do their masterminds after the event with other attendees and all kinds of collaborations have come out. There’s been business partnerships. There’s been more informal kinds of partnerships around creating products together. All kinds of opportunities come out of that.

The other benefit that comes out, and I know for many of our attendees, this is why they come. It’s sort of like a shot in the arm. It’s an inspirational time. It’s a time to get motivated. It’s a time to make some goals for the following 12 months. I know every year one of the things I try and get our attendees to do is to identify some priorities for what they’re going to go home and do. For me, that’s really important. We want to give you as much actionable information as we can but we also try and mix in some inspiration so that you not only learn how to do things, you have some reason to those things as well. Inspiration’s a big part of it. 

I guess the other thing that you’ll benefit from by coming to this event is you’ll hear about some of the latest innovations, technologies, and tools, both in the conversations that you have with other bloggers, there’s a lot of sharing of information in those conversations but also in the sessions themselves.

If you’d love to come to our event, we’d love to have you. Please go to probloggerevents.com and you’ll be able to find there links to where you can buy a ticket and also get more information on the event. There’s an opportunity there for you to contact us as well. My team will be more than happy to answer any questions that you have.

Can I just encourage you, though? If you are thinking about it, don’t hesitate too long. The prices will go up on July 1 if there’s tickets left. We always have that qualification because except for last year, we sold out every other year. Last year we didn’t sell out because we had such a big venue to fill but we’ve already taken a big step forward to filling that venue based on last year’s figure. By the time this podcast goes out, I’m hoping there’s still some tickets left and if there’s not, we will certainly make an announcement about that as well. There’s a Facebook group for the event as well. I’ll link to that in today’s show notes too. That’s another great place that you can get information on the event.

I hope that answers your questions. I hope that you will join us on the Gold Coast here in Australia on September 9 and 10. If you’ve got any feedback for us, I’d love to hear that over on the show notes today as well. All of the links that I’ve mentioned, all of the information that I’ve mentioned as well, I’ll try and summarize in today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/110. Thanks for listening and we’ll get back to our regular podcast schedule in the next couple of days.

You’ve been listening to ProBlogger. If you’d like to comment on any of today’s topics, or subscribe to the series, find us at problogger.com/podcast, tweet us @ProBlogger, find us at facebook.com/ProBlogger or search ProBlogger on iTunes.